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'Heroes of Newerth' Celebrates First Anniversary With Free-to-Play Week

Heroes of Newerth, a session-based multiplayer Action-RPG, is heavily inspired by the popular Warcraft 3 mod, Defense of the Ancients (DotA), but with vast improvements in graphics and gameplay.

Independent game developer S2 Games is launching a HoNiversary celebration that features an eleven day Free-to-Play (F2P) session, free goblin coins for all players, item shop changes and a revamped set of tool tips. The updates are aimed to enhance the gameplay experience for existing players and make HoN more accessible for new ones. The HoNiversary celebration kicks off tonight with the F2P session at 9:00 p.m. EST and runs through Sunday, May 22 at 12 a.m. EST.

“The HoN community has been instrumental in the success of the game, helping us to make tremendous strides since last year’s launch,” said S2 Games CEO and co-founder Marc DeForest. “In just the last month, our players enjoyed over 650 million minutes of HoN! We have an average of 30,000 people playing at any given time and daily concurrent peaks of over 50,000 players. We’re looking forward to increasing these numbers by continuing to add game updates and reward systems like the HoNiversary F2P session that keep existing players engaged, and encourage new players to join.”

The F2P session allows new players to sign up for a free HoN account so they can familiarize themselves with the session-based, multiplayer, action-RPG at no cost. Players can purchase a specific coin package during the HoNiversary event and receive a free account that they can use for themselves or pass along to a friend. Additionally, all players will be rewarded 100 Gold Goblin Coins and 100 Silver Coins for their first completed game during the course of the F2P week.

As part of the HoNiversary celebration, S2 Games is also delivering a game patch that will increase customization for current HoN fans and make the game more accessible for new players. The update, which goes live tonight at 9:00 p.m. EST, features:

An entirely redesigned item shop that not only reduces the amount of time new players need to learn the intricacies of item purchases, but also adds a layer of clarification for existing players. New elements include search functionality, a revamped purchasing interface, item progression panel and dual modes.

Fully interactive hero guides that can be customized and ultimately let users quickly purchase items and level up according to the guide. The guides are ranked by the community and give players the ability to set default preferences for recommended items.

A completely new set of simple tooltips designed to make the game more accessible for new players, along with a rewritten set of advanced tooltips for increased clarity, consistency, and usability for current players.

Two new highly requested avatars Winston Charmadon and Thor Thunderbringer.

Since its launch in May 2010, HoN has grown to include more than 420,000 unique active players.